Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Example robotic devices may include robotic manipulators, such as robotic arms, to interact with an environment in which the robotic devices are operating. Some robotic manipulators include a device known as an end-effector to manipulate objects within the environment. The nature of the end-effector may depend on the application or applications of the robotic device. End-effectors may be referred to generally as end-of-arm tooling. Various types of end-effectors exist, such as grippers or tools. Some grippers are considered impactive in that they use jaws or claws to physically grasp by direct impact upon an object. Other types of grippers may use other types other types of prehension, such as suction or adhesion.
In some cases, end-of-arm tooling for a robotic arm or other robotic manipulator may be specialized to a particular application. For instance, the end-of-arm tooling may be specialized to a particular object that an end-effector will be tasked to manipulate. Such specialization may improve the repeatability of robotic operations. As noted above, some grippers may use jaws or claws to physically grasp an object. In some cases, such jaws or claws may be modeled after a human hand to include one or more robotic fingers that can manipulate the environment. The robotic fingers may include fingertips that are specialized to grasp a certain object or type of object.